


House Arrest

by Seaward



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Birthday, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 07:02:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1103873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seaward/pseuds/Seaward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an unexplained allergic reaction in the Atlantis mess hall, Rodney has more and more reasons to be worried, but he also knows appearances can be deceptive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	House Arrest

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Elayna who gave suggestions on an earlier version. Hopefully I didn't add in too many mistakes as I rewrote parts.

“Breathe, McKay!”

Shaking. Cold. Rodney tries to breathe, tells himself the epipen is taking care of it. His heart races like something is about to attack him, but that’s just an effect of the epipen, which is going to save him from suffocating and dying.

Panic. Humiliation. Hard, cold floor of the mess hall. Shaking out of control, panting on the floor in front of coworkers is beyond humiliating.

And it’s the night before his birthday, and it didn’t look like he ate anything he hadn’t eaten before. Of course, appearances can be deceptive.

“It’s okay. Carson’s here.” John squeezes his shoulder and steps back. The physical connection is a comfort, and Rodney wishes John would stay with him.

Carson looms above him. “Aye, you’re going to be fine.”

-

Later, in his room, Rodney is searching the computer network. He's wrung out from the scene in the mess hall, from all the work he had to rush through since his allergies betrayed him, from too many days before that of exhaustion. He’s tired to the bone, but he can’t sleep. The records don’t make sense.

The pasta sauce that came on the Daedalus was different. It wasn’t some experiment with local foods that triggered Rodney’s allergies. Someone intentionally changed the order, and the new sauce contained lemon. Rodney works his way through the ordering system, works his way back through changes to provision requests, works his way back to John’s name on the relevant request. But he doesn’t believe John would do that.

John knows about Rodney’s allergies. John tastes food before him when they eat on alien planets and carries a spare epipen as his team leader, just in case. John protects Rodney and relies on Rodney's genius to save them all.

Rodney thinks John even likes him. There are parts of that he’s unclear on, but Rodney knows he likes John in a lot of ways. He never imagined John would try to kill him.

Two cups of coffee later, Rodney still can’t trace how anyone changed the order. There’s no bureaucratic back trail, no sign of hacking either, and Rodney should be able to out hack anyone in Atlantis. John’s name can’t appear as changing the food order without someone, John or someone else, doing something to put it there. But one search after another comes up dry.

-

Rodney wakes the next morning hunched over the desk in his room, hand still clutching his coffee cup, back so sore he can barely sit up. He stretches, and then in a flash of insight, he types frantically. He ignores traces of human activity and unravels operations in the original Atlantis systems. Exactly two months ago today, coinciding with the day John’s name appeared authorizing a change in the food order, there were two activations in other Ancient systems. One is what always happens when a previously disabled system comes online, like when they discover extra long range sensors or an additional protocol for the biomonitor. The other isn’t something Rodney has seen before. He’s scanning through records of every incident since they came to Atlantis, looking for that second signature, when a call comes through from Elizabeth.

“McKay, I need to see you in my office.”

“Yes, yes,” he answers, still typing.

“Now, Rodney.”

“Coming.”

He doesn’t have time to change clothes or shave, but he dumps everything he’s found onto a memory stick and then saves it with his medical records on a computer that doesn’t connect to any network. Then he erases his work from the computer on his desk, even though it’s all automatically encrypted to his personal specifications. It’s not that he’s paranoid, but he’s not sharing anything until he’s sure.

He doesn’t want to believe John would try to hurt him, but he knows John is smarter than he lets on. He might be smart enough to hack the system, especially if his ATA gene gave him some back door into the Ancient framework. Right now, John looks like suspect number one. What Rodney’s found so far won’t condemn or clear John, and it won’t prove who’s really responsible. Rodney’s sure he can solve it in a few more hours. He just has to meet with Elizabeth first.

-

Seated in Elizabeth’s office, Rodney is shocked into silence. Radek and John are there, too. Radek is showing one screen after another of programs Rodney supposedly sabotaged to divert power for some experiment of his own.

“What experiment?” Rodney finally interrupts.

“You must tell us!” Radek answers.

It stings to hear Radek accuse him, even if the data points that way. Rodney's hands rise up with his voice, “Don't be insane, and don't be stupid! I would not do this, and if I did, I’d hide it so well you’d never find it!”

“He has a point there,” John says without breaking his slouch.

“I agree,” Elizabeth says calmly raising an eyebrow to Radek. “It is hard to imagine Rodney would betray us this blatantly.”

“Sitting right here,” Rodney sputters. “And betray? I spend every waking moment, and several when most people would sleep, trying to save this city. Let me look at the code, and I’ll find out who did it and where they’re sending the power.”

“You cannot investigate yourself.” Radek clutches the computer to him like a child. “You must stay offline until we understand what was done.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“I hope not but do not know who else could. Soon, we will know.”

“Until then,” Elizabeth says, “You’ll have to stay in your quarters without accessing any systems.”

Rodney jumps out of his seat. “I have work to do! This is ridiculous.”

“It is, isn’t it?” John raises an eyebrow at Elizabeth.

“Sheppard, you’re the military commander of Atlantis.” She looks him in the eyes ignoring the way he sprawls, although Rodney notices John is still between him and the door. “You have to take this seriously.”

John raises his other eyebrow.

“You take shower and type notes,” Radek says to Rodney while typing. “You’re room is now blocked from all networks.”

Rodney’s fists clench, and he feels his blood pressure rise. He almost blurts out the leads he’s found about someone hacking John’s name into the system, but in that moment, he doesn’t know who he can trust, and he doesn’t want John under house arrest, too.

John and two marines escort Rodney to his room. They don’t say anything, but John bumps his shoulder, and Rodney feels a little better. At least John still seems to like him, but Rodney knows appearances can be deceptive.

-

By noon, Rodney has tried every way he can think of, physical or electronic, to work around his house arrest. He’s also taken a shower, eaten three power bars, and failed to do any useful work with his non-networked computer. Instead, he goes back to studying the data dump he hid offline in his medical history, trying to solve the question of who put John’s name on the food order, even without access to new data or any outside help. He is a genius, and they can’t spoil his birthday just by putting him under house arrest while he’s still recovering from a major allergic reaction.

The most recent incident records he grabbed before the meeting don’t show the second activation signature he’s looking for. However, there appears to be more energy used each time than the records of known systems account for. The energy is going to some unspecified process in the east tower. Rodney wonders if someone working there could have hacked the system to frame Rodney for siphoning extra power and John for trying to kill Rodney. Except, the two aren’t logically related and Rodney doesn’t think anyone in Atlantis is smart enough to hack the Ancient systems and reroute power that way, certainly not anyone other than him.

That’s when John arrives, leaning casually in the doorway with a tray of food. “I know you have a stash of powerbars and MREs, but I feared we’d never hear the end of it if you missed out on meatloaf and blue jello.”

Rodney can’t keep his mind from connecting food from John to the possibility of poisoning. Even a non-genius couldn’t have missed thinking it for a moment, Rodney tells himself. But there are two guards by his door watching the exchange who would notice if Rodney fell to the floor at the first taste. Also, to the extent that Rodney trusts himself to understand anything about people, he simply cannot believe that John would try to poison him.

He takes the tray from John’s hand just as an alarm sounds and the main lights go out in a shower of sparks.

Rodney finds himself on the floor beside his spilled food with John on top of him, John’s weapon drawn and pointing toward the hall. The two marines who’d been guarding his door start with their weapons pointed into the room. At a silent gesture from John in the green emergency light, they turn to scan the hall. Only after a silent head shake from each does John ease off McKay and move quietly to the doorway.

Rodney misses the press of John’s body more than he’d ever admit, but sprawled on the floor with all the guns pointed out to protect him, there’s no doubt in his mind as to who’s on his side.

“East tower,” Rodney whispers.

John looks back over his shoulder, “What?”

“I think whoever infiltrated the system is channeling power to the east tower.”

“Infiltrated? Sheesh, McKay, you were solving this while locked up?” John shakes his head as if he never doubted Rodney for a moment, and Rodney feels better than he has all day. “Let’s go.”

Rodney grabs his non-network computer and the memory stick he’s been using as back up, and just like that, he’s hurrying toward the east tower with John and two marines.

John gets a call from Elizabeth moments later telling him to meet her at the east tower. “Hope whoever it is isn’t listening,” he says. Other than that, they’re quiet until they reach the tower and meet up with Elizabeth, who has Radek and another squad of marines with her.

“You brought, McKay?” she asks.

“Long story. Anyway, he suggested the east tower before you called me.”

“This is not suspicious to you?” Radek asks.

“No, not really. He thinks whoever infiltrated is channeling power this way.”

“How could you know without system access?” Radek squints at Rodney.

“I was going over data from this morning. Before your coup of a morning meeting, I was researching who poisoned me with lemon in the pasta sauce. Occam’s razor suggests the same person is framing me for this power grab, and I found incidents where the power was redirected since the pasta sauce was ordered.”

“From you, this explanation seems possible,” Radek says. “But tower shows no life signs. Where would be your infiltrator?”

“The data I followed all tied into Ancient subsystems. We should look for some Ancient device that wasn’t activated until two months ago.”

“Oh, I might know where to find something like that,” John says with a tilt of his head.

Rodney, Radek, and Elizabeth all look at him. He shrugs, and assigning marines to positions as they go, leads them to a room on the second floor of the tower.

The room has bulky objects under dust covers in three corners, but the corner John leads them to seems recently used, and he pulls the cover off a smaller device with one hand. His weapon is ready in the other, but he mostly uses it to gesture at the boxy device with folded up appendages on the sides and what looks like a telescoping step ladder on the top. The machine seems inactive aside from a single amber light on the top. “This couldn’t be causing the problem, could it?”

“Did you start this up?” Rodney asks. “Seriously? Tell me you know better than that. Does this have something to do with ordering pasta sauce?”

“Yes, yes, no. I bet it’s not even the problem. It’s just a sort of gift machine.”

“A gift machine?” Elizabeth leans forward, squinting as if looking for instructions or a name on the device in Ancient or some other language. “Maybe you should tell us what you know.”

John looks down at his feet, and Rodney thinks that’s the Sheppard version of acting embarrassed.

“You see, I pass by here sometimes on my way to a really cool balcony, and I’d been trying to think of a good birthday present for McKay.”

“What, you—” Rodney starts.

“Sputter later. Listen now,” Radek says.

“Uh, thanks,” John nods. “Anyway, Atlantis sort of encouraged me to come in here.”

Rodney’s mind is running a mile a minute. First, John implied he was thinking about Rodney’s birthday months ahead of time, which is beyond flattering and into disconcerting. While Rodney really likes presents, he’s never had very good birthdays or expected anything for them since he grew up. Also, he didn’t expect John to know when his birthday was, let alone plan for a present. Now John’s implying his special connection to the city came into play, which suggests this gift idea was just a casual thought to John, and Rodney’s kind of afraid to think about what that means. He may have believed John liked him, and he may have felt a little more than liking for John, but mostly he tries to avoid even thinking about it. When he looks back toward John, the story has moved on and John has his eyes fixed on the machine rather than on anyone present.

“So I just had to picture things I knew about McKay, and maybe stuff about me and what I’m like, and it decided McKay would like a—this is kind of going to spoil the surprise,” he glances at Rodney with a smile Rodney used to think he understood. He used to think it was just friendly tolerance, but now it looks like actual affection. “Anyway, it’s making a robot cat.”

“You’re giving me a robot cat?”

“Well, not if it’s going to drain power from the city, or sabotage us. But yeah, I designed the cat to be smart, and have enough attitude so you wouldn’t get bored, and well, that’s kind of how I think cats are, but it wasn’t going to make messes or shred anything, so it wouldn’t endanger any of your projects.”

Rodney is torn between a joy more childish than the grin on John’s face and wanting to rail at him for being such a complete idiot in trusting unknown Ancient technology, and seriously, letting it design an intelligent robot cat with attitude! What was he thinking? Rodney is saved from saying anything he might regret when Elizabeth speaks first.

“Colonel Sheppard, are you saying you activated an Ancient device and have been running it for two months without telling anyone?”

Rodney can’t help but cringe as John switches from cheerful imp to somewhat insubordinate subordinate in under a second. “From that perspective, I’ll admit it doesn’t sound so good. But you know, this device might not have anything to do with the problems we’ve been tracking, so maybe we should check first and continue this conversation later?”

“Fair enough,” Elizabeth says, with a meaningful look at Zelenka.

“Um, give me just a minute while I figure out how—”

Rodney huffs, “Seriously, how did you think you could get along without me?” He holds out the memory stick to Radek. “This has two Ancient power signatures recorded exactly two months ago today, shortly before the pasta sauce order was changed to something containing lemon. All the suspicious power drains happened after that. If John turns off this device and it’s the responsible party, we should see power signatures that correlate with those recorded two months ago. Of course, it will take some time back in the lab to prove anything.”

Rodney looks at Radek, who looks at Elizabeth, who looks at John.

“Shut it down,” she says.

With a sigh, John holds his hand out over the machine, and the amber light turns off. It’s rather anti-climactic. Radek compares the energy signatures to the ones on Rodney’s memory stick and then compares those to the records from two months earlier. Rodney is watching over Radek’s shoulder and tries to shush him before he says, “This shows Colonel Sheppard ordered the change in the pasta sauce.”

“What!” John shouts.

“What about the device?” Elizabeth asks.

“Don’t worry,” Rodney answers them both. “The power signatures match, and if you’ll let me back into my lab, I’ll find out why this thing tried to kill me, and then frame me, rather than making my robot cat.”

-

That night, Rodney is alone in the lab when John shows up with two muffins frosted to look like cupcakes. He perches on the edge of Rodney’s desk so close that his leg brushes against Rodney’s knee. “Hey, McKay, Happy Birthday. It didn’t work out the way I intended, but you know, it could have been worse.”

“Yeah, I could have had a robot cat sulking at me for working too late.”

Rodney almost misses the hurt look before John comes back with, “Or we could still all be using emergency lights with you under house arrest and some alien tech stealing all our power.”

“She’s making you write up a report on this, isn’t she?”

“Yep, all about how I was stupid enough to spend two months running an alien project that the Ancients had scrapped for being too hard to control as it developed signs of psychotic instability.”

“We still haven’t figured out if it was trying to kill me, confused food allergies with favorite foods, or thought I’d like a puzzle to solve for my birthday.”

“Or maybe it was just trying to get you confined to quarters so you’d be there for your cat.”

“I still don’t know what it used all that power for if it never made the cat.”

“Oh,” John motions with his head toward the door, “I can show you. And it might be a nice place to eat your cake.”

Rodney opens his mouth to demand a more practical explanation, but John’s leg brushes against his, and then John is up and walking, still carrying both servings of cake, so Rodney just hurries to catch up.

John leads him to the east tower, but not to the room with the psychotic gift device. He makes his way to a balcony at the top with a view of Atlantis and the ocean. A salty, damp breeze from the ocean draws Rodney’s gaze out to where a gibbous Atlantean moon hangs over the horizon.

“So you’ve been coming here for months?”

“Yeah.” John hands him one of the little cakes, and their fingers brush as John says, “Happy Birthday.”

Before today, Rodney would have fought down the tingle of desire that light touch sends through him. He would have assumed John didn’t mean anything by it. Now he takes a bite of his muffin cake. It’s something like spice cake with cream cheese frosting, really good cream cheese frosting, and Rodney wonders if John mixed the frosting himself, but he doesn’t want to ask.

“You were thinking about my birthday two months ago?”

“Well, you’re always so happy when we bring back techy stuff, and kind of openly greedy about coffee, chocolate, food in general—”

“I’m hypoglycemic.”

“Doesn’t explain the coffee.”

“I’m too busy to sleep.”

John raises an eyebrow and sucks a bite of frosting off his finger. Then he flicks his tongue out to lick the underside, and Rodney can’t take his eyes off John’s mouth.

“Are you doing that on purpose?”

“Doing what, McKay?”

“The frosting thing?”

Rodney’s eyes are still on John’s mouth as he plays his tongue around one more time.

“Do you want some?”

Rodney’s mouth opens without consulting his brain, and John presses a fingertip with frosting in just enough to drag it across Rodney’s lower lip, leaving a trail of frosting.

John leans forward and licks the tiniest bit off Rodney’s lip, causing Rodney to shiver and close his eyes. Then they’re kissing and John’s tongue brushes into Rodney’s mouth, bringing the taste of frosting combined with John, and Rodney thinks it is probably the best taste ever.

John eventually pulls back until Rodney is shocked at the loss of touch and opens his eyes. John is still standing close, close enough that when he speaks, Rodney can feel John’s breath on his face, “Yes?”

“Yes, definitely, yes.”

John quickly sets aside their plates and pushes Rodney up against the balcony rail, so they’re pressed together thigh to chest. Their erections brush against each other through their clothes, and Rodney wonders if he’d still be standing without the railing and John’s body to support him. Then John’s kissing him and removing both their shirts, and Rodney first notices because it interrupts the kiss. John’s hands rub across Rodney’s chest, brush against his nipples and dip down, grazing the tip of his cock.

“Oh shoot, you’re going to make me come in my trousers.”

He can feel John smile against his mouth. “No, just hold on one more minute.” The words against Rodney’s lips are almost too much, but he holds tight to the fear of embarrassment, which is enough.

Realizing his eyes are closed again, Rodney opens them to watch John undo Rodney’s fly and carefully slide down both his trousers and boxers as he leans forward to surround Rodney’s cock with his lips. He’s slow, and gentle, obviously trying to give Rodney a chance to enjoy a little more. But the sight of John’s lips wrapped tight around Rodney’s cock is too hot.

“John, I’m—” That’s all he gets out before he’s coming in hard spurts, and John is sucking down farther on Rodney’s cock, swallowing everything, and he doesn't stop until Rodney’s spent and sinking down to the ground.

Rodney pretty much collapses against John, pushing him down flat on the balcony and fumbling with the buttons on John's BDUs. John lets him, making little pushing motions with his hips as Rodney gets John uncovered and takes him into his mouth. Then oh, the taste, and the warmth, and it’s never been like this, because this is John, and Rodney has wanted to do this for so long. He can’t go slowly like John tried to do for him. He sucks in as much as he can, and it doesn’t last nearly long enough before John is coming in his mouth, and Rodney is slurping, and messy, and so very happy.

He flops down beside John, with an arm across him, and it feels ridiculous that they both still have their trousers bunched around their knees, but Rodney can’t remember the last time he felt so good.

“Best birthday ever,” Rodney rasps, still a little breathless.

John pulls back a little, not with his body, but moves his head enough so he can look Rodney in the eyes. “Not just for your birthday, right?”

Something tightens inside of Rodney, and it’s a little like fear and a little like hope. “You mean, you want, I wasn't even sure you liked guys.”

“American military, Rodney. Appearances can be deceptive." John strokes a finger across Rodney's lips and smiles. "But if you’re willing, I don’t think anyone here cares too much, so long as we’re careful and don’t let it interfere with our work.”

“Oh, yes, yes, yes.” He’s up on his elbows and kissing John, and John’s laughing into his mouth. “Come back to my room, for a while at least?” Rodney pleads.

“I thought you’d never ask. But first, I promised I’d show you something.”

John stands, and pulls Rodney up fast so they half fall together. John kisses Rodney’s nose, which is ridiculous, but they’re both pretty ridiculous as they fasten their trousers, ignoring their shirts for the moment. Then John drags Rodney to the far side of the balcony, and Rodney see’s there is a gate, so the railing can open, and just beyond is a seat with a safety bar. Behind it Rodney can see three more, attached to a metal “X” that’s attached to the tower.

“It made you a Ferris wheel.”

“I didn’t ask for it.”

“But you told it what you liked, and it wanted to make you a gift. Does it work?”

“No power, now. But I checked it out, and the structure is sound, we can sit in the chair here.”

When John opens the gate from the balcony and pulls up the safety bar, Rodney steps into the seat, and sure enough it doesn’t break, just rocks a little, as its girding allows. Then Johns sits next to Rodney and the seat rocks again. They kiss as if they’re riding around in circles, and the ocean view seems even brighter from their own private Ferris wheel seat.

“I think maybe the machine had a crush on you and wanted to get rid of me. Maybe it never meant to build the cat at all.”

“Maybe you don’t need a robot cat now.”

“You’re saying you’re smart and have enough attitude to keep me occupied?”

“Meow.”

Then the kissing gets deeper, and Rodney breaks away and leads John back to his room, where there is a bed and they can take a little more time. On the way there, he thinks up plans for a solar cell that could power John’s Ferris wheel.

The end


End file.
